


What Lies Beneath

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Blood, Gen, Spring Sprite AU, in a glade 'verse, offscreen non-descriptive animal death, one not detailed offscreen human death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 22:12:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11217294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: The man with the shovel and the secret had heard all the stories, but he was desperate. He made his way deep into the woods, a fat, orange harvest moon his only source of light, his feet crunching in the thick carpet of fallen leaves. He found a clearing and buried his secret, saying a prayer in the hopes that what he had buried would not come back to him. He wondered if the stories about the forest were true.There's something new in the forest. Something wrong.





	What Lies Beneath

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @HerbertBest's Spring Sprite AU/ In A Glade 'Verse. I couldn't resist having my OC visit.
> 
> Edited to Add: My OC Gabriel was first introduced in "Down the Many Winding Paths," Chapter 31.

There were stories about the forest, as there were stories about most forests that were old and dark, stories that stretched back and back and back. Axes and chainsaws broke whenever they were raised to a tree. Hunters had unusually bad luck, and those who managed to kill something only rarely managed to leave with their kill. There were lights that would lead you astray and strange creatures that might help or harm you seemingly on a whim. Faeries lived there, or witches, or gods, or something else, something older.

The man with the shovel and the secret had heard all the stories, but he was desperate. He made his way deep into the woods, a fat, orange harvest moon his only source of light, his feet crunching in the thick carpet of fallen leaves. He found a clearing and buried his secret, saying a prayer in the hopes that what he had buried would not come back to him. He wondered if the stories about the forest were true.

The way into the forest was easy. The way out, no so much. A sudden storm rolled in, hail rattling off the trunks of trees, lightning flashing all around him before the hail changed to a cold, driving rain. It seemed like every tree root and rock was trying to trip him, every branch aiming for his face or his groin. By the time the man found his way out of the forest he was bleeding and sore and soaked to the skin. Later that night, when sleep finally claimed him, he would have nightmares about being lost in the forest as something sinister and dark stalked him.

In the darkness of the forest, something began to grow.

******

“Brian?”

Immortal spirits sleep deeply when they sleep, but Brian’s black eyes opened in an instant when Dan’s anxious voice penetrated his dreams, and he was up on his feet before he was even fully awake. Dan was standing at the mouth of the cave, early autumn sunlight shining through wings that were trembling along with their owner. He was shirtless, his arms wrapped tightly around himself, for warmth or comfort, Brian wasn’t sure.

“Dan, what’s wrong?” Brian picked up Dan’s tunic where it had been discarded the night before and held it out to him.

Dan took the offered garment and just held it loosely in one hand. He ran the other hand through his hair, disturbing a few blossoms of foxglove that were growing near the base of his antlers, and when he looked at Brian his eyes were wet. “Can’t you feel it?”

Brian looked out into the forest and concentrated. Autumn was a time of preparing for winter, and there was usually a feeling of business as some animals prepared for hibernation, mixed with the easing into of gentle sleep from trees and the slow death of other plants. It was a time when life and death danced together in equal measure to a song as old as the universe.

There was a discordant note in the song this morning, something that jangled against Brian’s sense of self and made his fingers twitch. There had been many quick deaths of animals and plants in the night, and he could feel the slower dying of trees on the edge of his awareness.

“Poison?” Brian said out loud, but Dan was already shaking his head, putting on his tunic with trembling fingers, wings and antlers phasing through the material as if it wasn’t there.

“There’s something not of the forest. Something not alive but not exactly dead. Something _angry._ Something _wrong._ ” Dan started walking through the trees, goldenrod sprouting from where his bare feet had trod. Brian walked next to him, the fallen autumn leaves decomposing just a little faster under his feet. The forest was eerily silent as they walked, the fear from the animals in the forest leaving a bitter taste in Brian’s mouth.

The forest was large, but still it did not take the pair long at all to find the source of the wrongness. Yesterday it had been a clearing ringed with birch trees and filled with fall wildflowers. Now it was a thicket of thorny vines that covered the ground and were winding around the trunks of the trees at their base, cutting deeply, killing them slowly. Brian could sense the dead animals underneath the dense growth of thorns, both their bodies and their spirits trapped. The thorns made Brian think of Holly, but this wasn’t her work. Even in her worst temper she wasn’t this cruel.

Dan took a step towards one of the vines. The thorns were as long as his thumb, curved and sharp. “It feels… almost like a spirit. An anger spirit? Is that a thing?” He took another step forward and raised his voice. “Hello? Are you a spirit? Why are you so angry? Do you want to talk about it?”

A vine lashed out towards Dan’s face, supernaturally fast. Brian was faster though, grabbing the back of Dan’s tunic and yanking him backward. The thorns that would have blinded Dan only grazed his cheek, drops of crimson scattering on the ground and turning into tiny red flowers that went to seed and died almost immediately.

Brian drew Dan back several dozen feet, and the vines did not pursue them. “I think that was a no.”

Dan rubbed at his cheek, wiping away the blood and healing the flesh in an instant. “I—I don’t know what to do about this.”

“I do.”

The voice came from behind Brian and Dan and they both turned around in surprise, Brian automatically doing the thing where he faded from mortal sight. Dan didn’t, of course. He was entirely too trusting, in Brian’s opinion, and he found it nerve-wracking and endearing in near equal measure.

The person who had been standing behind them looked to be a human of about thirty something years of age, as humans reckoned time, with short hair the reddish-orange of a fox’s coat. Their eyes were an opaque white as if they were blind. They had a beat up messenger bag slung across one shoulder and they were wearing a leather jacket, though what animal that leather had come from Brian couldn’t say. They had tattoos on both hands that looked like they might extend up their arms as well, one was a labyrinth inside a compass rose, the other a spiderweb filled with stars. The person stared past Dan and towards the growth of thorns. “Well that’s something you don’t see every day. At least I don’t. And I see a lot of strange things.”

“Excuse me—“ Dan said, and there was a short pause before the stranger’s gaze snapped back to Dan.

“Gabriel. Just Gabriel,” they said with a smile as they stuck out their hand to shake.

As soon as Dan touched Gabriel’s hand, his eyes widened and his slightly wary expression became more of an honest smile. “Oh! You’re like Brian! I mean, you feel like him. Chilly, and not like… entirely alive but not actually dead? Am I right? My name’s Dan, by the way.“

Gabriel grinned widely. “Hi Dan! And you’re right! My god doesn’t believe in life as a binary concept, just like gender, it doesn’t have to be an either/or kind of deal. Is Brian your friend who thinks he pulled a disappearing act on me?”

Gabriel looked Brian in the eyes, which should have been impossible. Brian moved silently to the left and watched Gabriel’s eyes track the motion. Now that Dan had pointed out their nature, Brian realized that Gabriel’s eyes were indeed the clouded eyes of someone who may have once been a corpse. That was..intriguing. Brian let himself fade back into reality and Gabriel smiled and gave him a knowing nod.

Gabriel tilted their head to the side like a curious bird as they shook hands with Brian. “Huh. You have sin eater’s eyes, but you’re something else entirely, aren’t you?”

Brian didn’t know what a sin eater was, but it didn’t sound like an insult. “Well, you have the eyes of a corpse, but you aren’t.” Being this close to Gabriel, Brian could sense something, almost like a smell, almost like a taste. The smell of death, their own and other people’s, clung to them like smoke, and that was familiar at least. There was also the cold tang of distant stars on the back of his tongue, and that reminded Brian of Jack, who was Not From Around Here. He hoped this human, if they _were_ actually human, wasn’t bringing more trouble. “I’m a wraith. I take care of the forest in winter and take care of that which is dormant and dying here.”

Gabriel nodded slowly. “You wouldn’t be called a wraith where I come from. That—“ Gabriel gestured towards the twisted mass of thorns. “That’s the work of what I would call a wraith. They’re a human spirit so strong and so twisted up with anger that they can effect the environment around them. I have to say, this is pretty extensive though. This has either been going on for awhile—“

“It hasn’t,” both Dan and Brian said at once. Dan’s voice, usually calm, contained a note of anxiety that Brian didn’t normally hear coming from him. Brian reached over and took Dan’s hand, which was shaking the tiniest bit. “We only felt something wrong this morning,” Brian said, running his thumb over Dan’s knuckles in a soothing way.

“This must be hard for you,” Gabriel said, looking at Dan. “You take care of the forest too, don’t you?”

Dan nodded. “This feels,” he gestured towards the vines. “This feels so _wrong._ Like an itch in the back of my brain.”

“I know that feeling. But this is going to be okay, truly. I do this sort of thing all the time, helping to settle the dead. I wouldn’t have been lead here, if it was something I couldn’t handle. Probably. You never know, with gods.”

Brian didn’t ask which god. There were either be time for small talk later or there wouldn’t, and he hardly cared either way. He wanted this disruption dealt with. “So what are you going to do?”

Gabriel held up their hands, and as Brian and Dan watched, blue-purple fire began to flow over Gabriel’s hands like water until they were wreathed in flame all the way down to the wrist. The strange flames cast light but no heat as they burned. “This will only burn the unnatural growth, it won’t harm anything else, living or dead.”

“What about the human spirit?” Trust Dan to ask that, eternally curious and compassionate Dan.

“It won’t harm them either, not unless I want it to, though I hope it won’t come to that. They’re angry and scared and they don’t want to be here. Still, that’s no excuse for all this.” Gabriel shook their head and looked thoughtful for a moment before looking at the two of them. “I’ll go do what needs doing and you do the same. This seems like a nice place.” They started walking forward, hands blazing, straight into the thorns.

Brian saw the thorns rise up like a hundred waving arms and then descend with a snap like a lightning strike. Gabriel stood still and held out their hands and suddenly the thicket of thorns was ablaze. Brian watched the spirits of the animals who had been caught in the thorns run out of the flames unharmed, foxes and rabbits, deer and squirrels, even a bear and a few birds, which flew towards him. He went to his knees, arms wide, to receive them all. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “It’s all right, it’s over, I’m here for you.”He felt them brush against his skin like snowflakes as they passed into him, through him, into whatever awaited animals in the beyond. Peace, he hoped. Peace and rest.

There was the sound of several trees falling, the unfortunate trees that had been cut nearly all the way through by the sharp and constricting thorns. Brian quickly looked to make sure that Dan wasn’t in the path of any of the falling trees but no, he was fine, already laying hands on the scarred trunks of the trees that were still standing, whispering to them as the strange blue and purple flames died away. Brian watched wood and bark knit together under Dan’s careful hands before his attention was caught by what sounded like Gabriel having an argument.

“I know, okay? You think I don’t? You’re dead, and I’m sorry for it, but you can’t go around hurting everyone just because you’re upset.”

Brian turned around. The thorn vines were all just gray ash blowing in the wind now, and he could see Gabriel quite clearly, but not whomever they were speaking to. If Brian squinted, he could make out a distortion in the air, but that was all. He couldn’t hear the spirit either, if it was indeed responding to Gabriel in any way. The spirits of humans were a mystery to him.

Gabriel reached out a hand. “You don’t have to stay here. I can lead you elsewhere, if you let me. You can walk the path to what comes next. I can walk it with you, if you like.”

There was a long pause, and then Gabriel closed their eyes for a moment and sighed. “I’m not going to kill your killer for you. I don’t do that if it can at all be helped. It’s a hard oath to keep, but it’s mine. You can have your revenge, but not that. Give me your last moment and I’ll make sure they know what they did, how it felt. All you have to do is take my hand.”

Brian watched as Gabriel’s fingers closed around empty air. For a moment nothing seemed to be happening, then Gabriel’s body jerked as if something had hit them in the chest. Their breath quickened and they made a sharp, high sound, like a rabbit in distress. From his peripheral, Brian watched Dan’s head snap up at the sound, and rushed over to intercept him. Dan would try and help anything in pain, animal or human.

“It’s hurting them!” Dan said, frantic. “We can’t just—“

Gabriel flung up a hand in his direction. “I’ll be fine, this is—“ Their body jerked again and their words cut off abruptly. Their breath was a high pitched wheeze, nearly a scream. Their breathing was the loudest sound in the clearing, and when Gabriel’s body jerked one more time and their breathing stopped, the silence was as loud as thunder. The hand that had been outstretched into the empty air suddenly fell onto the dirt as Gabriel sank to their knees in ground that had recently been disturbed and Brian felt the _wrongness_ that had been beating against him since this morning suddenly vanish.

“It’s gone,” Brian whispered. “I think it’s gone.” He took a step toward Gabriel, who was still kneeling in the dirt, hands limp at their sides, staring at the ground, not breathing.

“Don’t touch me!” The words came out in a gasp, which was followed by a fit of coughing. Brian swore he saw a few drops of blood land on the ground, and when Gabriel wiped the back of their mouth with one hand there was a small, bright smear of blood. Gabriel lifted their head and looked at where the spirit had been. “Looks like he knew the path he needed to take. That makes one thing a little easier at least.” Gabriel only wobbled a little as they got to their feet.

“What happened? What did you do?” Brian asked. The spirits of animals were easy to deal with. This was something else entirely.

“He gave me his last moment, his last gasp. I saw what he saw, felt what he felt. It’s a tool and a weapon, one of the few the dead have.” Gabriel looked down at the ground. “His body is under my feet. I assume you don’t want the police here, disturbing this place with their noise and their tools.”

Brian felt his skin crawl at the thought of more humans in the forest. Holly would have a fit, and her temper was legendary. Dan was already shaking his head.

“Right. I think—I think I can make this work so everyone is happy. You do whatever it is you do, and I’ll be back.” Gabriel took a step toward them and vanished before their foot hit the ground.

Dan blinked in confusion and looked around. “Where did they go?”

“To find the human killer, I think,” Brian replied. He put a hand on Dan’s shoulder, taking comfort in the contact, in the warmth. “Let’s go see to the trees.”

Only some of the trees could be saved. There were a few that still clung to life, though they had been so deeply wounded by the thorns that they would fall with the first snow. Brian laid his hand on those and spoke to them, told them that they could let go, that it was all right. He felt their spirits pass into them, the living trees becoming so much dead wood. They would join the other fallen trees come winter, become hiding places for animals. He didn’t have to do anything with the bodies of the animals that had been caught and slain by the unnatural thorns. Their bodies would be picked at by scavengers and what was left would decompose. The earth would be richer for their death.

Brian found himself staring at the patch of ground that had been disturbed, where the human’s body lay. Humans came to the forest occasionally, and some of them had even died in the forest, but this was the first time someone had brought a body here, and buried it. Brian wasn’t surprised now that something had grown from what had been planted, if that had been the seed.

By the time everything was tended to, the sun was beginning to set. Brian sat at the edge of the clearing, Dan held in the circle of his arms.

“Do you think they’re coming back?” Dan asked, sounding sleepy. It had been a long day, and Dan tended to get tired more easily as autumn went on.

Brian shook his head, running his hands through Dan’s hair. “I don’t know.”

There was the crunch of feet landing on dead leaves. “That could have gone better,” Gabriel said as they sat down beside them, leaning back against the trunk of a tree. They were smiling but their voice sounded strained. Brian was starting to wonder if the smile was, not exactly a lie, but a defense, like a porcupine’s quills. “It didn’t take long to find him at all but there were…other complications. They must not have people like me here, killers back home tend to take better precautions, generally.”

“People like you,” Dan said. “What are you? I mean, you almost feel like, well, one of us, except you’re not.”

Gabriel tilted their head back, looking up at the darkening sky. “Where I’m from, the gods choose people to do their work on earth, to fight the things that live between stars, between the cracks in the worlds. I was chosen by the Walking God, who gave me the the ability to see between layers of reality, and to walk the paths of the living and the dreaming. Then, after I died, they brought me back and gave me the ability to walk the paths of the dead. That’s mostly what I do these days, help to settle the dead, deliver justice, all that sort of thing. The God takes my feet and I go where They lead me. I’ve been to all sorts of worlds, met all kinds of people.”

Brian tried to imagine not being in his forest, waking up every morning in a different place. He couldn’t. “That sounds… lonely.” It sounded awful, frankly.

Silence. Brian looked over and Gabriel’s eyes were closed. For a moment he thought they might be asleep.

“It’s easier,” Gabriel said softly.

The near silence was broken by the sound of crunching leaves, breaking twigs, and quiet sobbing. Gabriel sat up straight. “Ahh, there he is. I could have brought him here directly, but I didn’t want to make it easy for him. Don’t worry about him seeing you, he only has eyes for one thing at the moment.”

Brian watched the strange human stumble into the clearing, shovel in hand. He was mumbling to himself, crying, pleading. He paused when he got to the edge of the patch of dirt underneath where the body lay, and it looked like he was struggling with something. Then his body jerked like he had been hit and he nearly screamed as he frantically scrambled to put his shovel into the dirt.

“What… what did you do to them?” Dan whispered.

“I put a geas on him. He has to dig up this body and confess his crime to the police, without mentioning that he was ever here, in your woods. The geas will break once he makes his confession, but until then any time spent not fulfilling his task will cause him to relive the last moments of that young man that he killed.”

It was cruel, but also a fitting punishment, Brain thought, and he gave a tiny nod of approval to Gabriel, who have him a half smile in return.

Dan was shaking his head. “I don’t get it. I mean, animals kill each other in defense or for food, but humans… Why did he do this?”

“I didn’t ask,” Gabriel said. “It was difficult enough getting the geas on him, and he wasn’t feeling particularly chatty. It took awhile for the fight to go out of him.” Gabriel shifted, and now Brian could see a bruise purpling one cheek. “Some humans find pleasure in this sort of thing. For some it’s a compulsion, or even just something that happens in the heat of the moment.”

They all went silent then, lost in their own thoughts as they watched the man dig up the body, wrap it in a tarp, and sling it over his shoulders. He staggered under the weight, but he didn’t stop moving, not once, and eventually his footsteps faded from the forest. The open grave looked like a gaping wound in the twilight.

Dan snored gently from the circle of Brian’s arms. Out of the corner of his eye, Brain saw Gabriel smile.

“He gets tired more easily, this time of year,” Brian said, running a hand through Dan’s hair. “He’ll sleep through the winter, wake up in the spring. I’ll sleep through most of spring and summer, and wake up in autumn.”

“And your dreams will fill the forests with birds made of light, and their songs will ring through the trees like crystal. That’s what this place reminds me of, the Forest of Dreams. Human dreams become fish that swim down the billion rivers into the Ocean, but the dreams of spirits and gods and immortals? Birds of every shape and size.”

“Sounds pretty,” Dan mumbled in his sleep. A few seconds later he was snoring again.

“What shape do your dreams take?” Brian asked. He hadn’t meant it as a serious question, but Gabriel’s smile was a twisted thing.

“I don’t have much occasion to look. Eels maybe, if my dreams still swim. Wolves, if they live in the forest. Some flavor of nightmare, at any rate.” Gabriel shifted and winced, one hand going to their chest. “Some night this week I’ll dream of a knife in my chest and wake up from the phantom pain of it and that will be another nightmare for the menagerie. The last moments of the dead stay with you.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Brian said. “Animals are simple, plants even more so.”

“I envy you that,” Gabriel said. “I wouldn’t give this up for anything, but I envy you.”

“Is it always like that?” Brian gestured toward the open grave, towards where there had been thorns hours ago. “Is it always hard?”

Gabriel made a sound, and for a moment Brian thought they were crying. It took him a moment to realize that Gabriel was laughing.

“That? That wasn’t hard. That was nearly straightforward. The victim saw the killer before he died, saw the killer’s home even. I didn’t have to spend days fishing for the killer’s dreams to find out where he lived so I could walk there. I didn’t have to bind that spirit, or banish him. His death was quick, as deaths go. I’ve felt much worse.”

Silence again, and Brian felt his eyes drift closed. It had been a long day. He was only half awake when he heard Gabriel get up and he struggled to open his eyes.

“Don’t wake up on my account,” Gabriel said. “The geas is broken, which means my work is done. Time for whatever comes next. It was nice, meeting you both, talking with you, staying here in your forest. I thank you for it.” They sounded cheerful but exhausted.

Brian had no cause to think kindly of humans, but he wasn’t entirely sure if Gabriel counted as human. “You could stay,” he said. “Get some rest.”

He heard Gabriel chuckle. “I literally can’t. I have itchy feet and miles to go before I sleep and all that nonsense. But I thank you. Take good care of this place. Dream your dreams. May your path be easy.”

Brian fell asleep and dreamt of forests filled with birds with wings like rainbows and songs like crystal, and of wolves with red fur and white eyes.

*****

“Brian?”

Dan’s voice sounded full of amused surprise, which was much better than it had sounded the previous morning. Brian could still hear the singing of rainbow birds, the sound following him out of dreams. Brian opened his eyes to see Dan standing in front of him, grinning widely. There was a bird perched on the prong of one antler, a bird that was as blue as all the colors of the sky and shone like starlight. Its song was liquid crystal as it trilled a greeting to the morning.

“You have a new friend,” Brian said, and then he felt a weight on his shoulder and there was a sound next to his ear, a caw like shattering crystal.

“You have one too!” Dan grinned widely as he tried to imitate the sound of his blue bird. Within minutes they were singing together.

Brian reached a hand up to his shoulder and felt the bird step onto it. It was a raven, and anyone who thinks a raven’s feathers are simply black have never looked at one closely. This bird’s feathers shone black, true, but also purple and green and blue. It cawed again, and Brian smiled and gave the bird a gentle head scratch.

“They’re dreams, aren’t they? Like Gabriel was talking about,” Dan said. “Did they bring them to us?”

Brian looked out over the clearing. The open grave had been filled in, and the shovel was gone. “I think it was a thank you. For the company.”

Dan hummed happily, and the birds sang, each in their own way.

The next spring the clearing filled itself with little red flowers, and the songs of birds echoed from the trees.


End file.
